Hospital, home care agency join forces

PRESQUE ISLE – An affiliation between The Aroostook Medical Center and the Aroostook Home Care Agency has been approved, allowing a continuing source of home care for County patients, according to the respective agencies.

The boards of each agency have approved the affiliation, scheduled to be effective Oct. 1.

“Our physicians think it’s important that home care remain available,” Tom Umphrey, TAMC director of human resources, said Monday.

The Aroostook Home Care Agency is the parent company to Visiting Nurses of Aroostook and Hospice of Aroostook. Like other similar agencies across the country, the organization has been financially challenged by the reimbursement cuts under the 1997 federal Balanced Budget Act.

The affiliation will put the County home care agency in touch with other similar agencies affiliated with Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, which also is connected to TAMC, according to Umphrey.

“This will strengthen and enhance the services we currently provide for our patients and their families throughout Aroostook County,” Mel Gould, AHCA board chairman, said in a prepared statement.

AHCA has been in existence for 31 years, said Gould.

“We’ve been there to provide dependable high quality care and that will not change,” Gould said.

According to TAMC President David Peterson, health care costs could increase without home care agencies.

“Without these home health services, TAMC would be faced with increased costs related to longer hospital and nursing home stays for patients who could be or appropriately served at home,” Peterson in a statement.

The chairman of the TAMC board, David Olsen, said the affiliation was a “proactive step” to maintain home care services in the region.

Last year, VNA provided 52,000 visits to 2,886 patients and Hospice of Aroostook cared for 124 patients and their families.